DNA helps find suspect in 1976 Sacramento murder

SACRAMENTO, CA - A 36-year-old murder was closed after a DNA analysis found the suspect.

On Sept. 4, 1976, a 60-year-old woman was found strangled in her hotel room on the 1100 block of 7th Street in, what Sacramento police believe, a robbery.

In March 2011, cold case detectives sent evidence from the victim's autopsy to the Sacramento County District Attorney's Crime Lab for DNA analysis.

On Monday, detectives got a DNA match. Carl Eugene Blackwell was identified as a suspect and detectives began the search. They discovered that Blackwell, who was 22 at the time of the murder, died on Oct. 10, 2004.

Sacramento police said this is the fourth cold case the department solved through DNA this year.